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The day-long event held Monday, March 23, at the GE Health care Institute in Waukesha features about 175 "speed dating" meetings between 16 major companies and more than 50 emerging firms selected from a larger pool.

A series of 35-minute "office hours" presentations will run throughout the day to showcase support initiatives available to emerging companies in Wisconsin.

"The Tech Summit was designed to create an incredibly efficient way of creating connections in a new networking environment. Each company has a captive audience for the time they are together to share their pitch and quickly identify areas of opportunity," says Bushman, who is also a member of the Wisconsin Technology Council board of directors and executive committee.

"The time of start-ups or small company CEOs is precious because they wear so many hats. Having the opportunity to create immediate connections with the right contact at a company with whom they have been matched can save time and money."

Small companies aren't the only ones that benefit. For Marshfield Clinic, the primary objective is identifying research collaborators and opportunities for joint intellectual property development.

MCIS, which will be launching a new commercialized EMR product later this spring, is looking for complimentary software systems that will continue to enhance the functionalities of their current product offerings.

"As a health care IT company specializing in EHR, analytics and patient portal we are always monitoring the rapid changes and advances in health care software, service and app development.

Technology has become such a substantial part of health care on both the patient and provider sides," says Schalow. "There are some extremely sophisticated services evolving and MCIS is always looking at ways to capitalize on that to be sure we are providing the best patient care and data driven solutions possible."

The "Office Hours" sessions and "speed-dating" exercise will foster possible connections between major firms and selected emerging companies.

Major companies will be able to hear from emerging firms with innovative products or services tied to areas such as "big data," connected devices and data analytics in sectors ranging from health care to information systems, and from power electronics to telecommunications.

Applied Sciences is a business-oriented service focused on putting Marshfield Clinic derived technologies to work in the marketplace. Specifically, Applied Sciences helps physicians, scientists and staff identify, protect, market and license promising new technologies to industry. This bridges the gap between clinical and industry and helps to establish partnerships that can make useful new technologies available for public benefit. In addition to the benefits that may result, Marshfield Clinic values such partnerships for the opportunities they may provide for clinical and research collaborations.

Marshfield Clinic Information Services (MCIS) is an IT company dedicated to delivering and managing cutting edge products and services for health care providers. MCIS produces products and services that enable the effective and efficient practice of medicine at an affordable cost. Headquartered in Marshfield, Wisconsin, MCIS is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Marshfield Clinic, a leading provider of health care services. This rich history of collaboration between health care provider and the IT service is paramount to the success of MCIS. From inception this model provides access to numerous practicing physicians across more than 80 medical specialties. This access is not just for advice and improvements but also to test and demonstrate what works in the real world to improve patient care.